


Christmas Drinks

by flawedamythyst



Series: Historic Features [3]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Christmas, M/M, ghost au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28453266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Having a few guys over for drinks and a game is a bit different when you live with two ghosts.Christmas Tumblr ficlet for ameliahcrowley.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Historic Features [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1283456
Comments: 20
Kudos: 157





	Christmas Drinks

“Steve? Why the hell do you have a door that says ‘Realm of the Dead’?” shouted a voice outside Clint and Bucky’s room, loud enough to intrude on the memory they were sharing of a summer’s day in the park. New York was cold in December, even for ghosts, and Clint had been enjoying the memory of summer sun.

And the memory of Bucky’s shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow, aw yeah. 

“Guess the guests are here then,” said Bucky, letting the memory slip away until they were back in the white walls of their room. He’d kept the outfit though, so Clint didn’t mind too much.

“That was there before I moved in!” he heard Steve call back to his friend. “Ask Tony!”

Which was a complete cop out, as far as Clint was concerned, because Steve knew exactly what this room was for. “Let’s go say hello,” said Clint, grinning at Bucky and holding his hand out.

Bucky took it, rolling his eyes. “Tony asked us to stay low-profile,” he reminded him.

“Sure,” agreed Clint, drifting through the door of the room. “Doesn’t mean we have to. It’s Christmas, after all, shouldn’t we be allowed to join in a party happening in our own apartment?”

Bucky laughed as they wandered down the hallway to the main room, which was filling up with people. Tony and Steve had put up a tree and covered the place in garlands, then had a short, passionate argument over mistletoe that had ended with some being put up in their bedroom but none in the main room.

As they entered, Jarvis lit up the faint spotlights that he used to illuminate the cold patches the ghosts registered as on his sensors. Clint caught Tony glancing over from where he was pouring drinks in the corner, by the bar, but no one else noticed in the splash of fairy lights that covered the rest of the room.

“I don’t know, doesn’t everyone have a room for the dead?” Tony was saying to the guy as he poured a tray of drinks. “Maybe it’s just a rich person thing?”

“You also have a room marked as No Entry for ghosts,” said the guy.

“Well, yeah,” said Tony. “That’s the server room. Can’t possibly have ghosts getting involved with my servers, very bad for the electrics, you know how it is.”

“Steve! Your boyfriend is lying to me,” the guy called across to Steve, who was trying to get Tony’s overly-fancy TV to show whatever sport everyone had gathered for. From the amount of attention it was getting, Clint had a feeling most people were actually there to snoop on Steve’s new apartment, now that he’d finally agreed to move on with Tony.

“He’s a businessman, Sam, he lies to everyone,” said Steve without looking over.

“Hey!” protested Tony. “I’m a _highly-successful_ businessman. I pay other people to lie for me.”

It was all pretty different to any of the Christmas parties Clint could remember, but then he’d pretty much only had those at the circus, before the depression ruined everyone’s dreams, and Clint moved to Brooklyn with no money and no friends. Even the years he’d lived with Bucky had been quiet. No one had been able to afford to have a fancy party like this, or really had the space to gather all their friends.

Most people had barely been able to scrape together enough for a proper dinner, let alone all the extravagance Tony had poured into Steve’s casual plan to have some friends over to watch a game before Christmas.

“I’m gonna fuck with him,” said Clint, eyeing Tony.

Bucky laughed. “I feel like I should be trying to talk you out of that, but…”

“It’s been a long time since I got to fuck with someone,” Clint pointed out. He felt like he’d been ridiculously good over the last few months and he was kinda getting bored of it. What was the point of being a ghost if you didn’t get to use your powers to annoy people? “And you’ll be busy watching sport, I’ll need something to do.”

“I mean, it’s basketball not baseball, but yeah, probably,” said Bucky. “Just don’t blink away from this room?”

“Of course not,” said Clint. Now he actually knew that Bucky was haunting him rather the apartment, and so got dragged along any time Clint went into another room, he was trying to be more considerate about not pulling him about when he was happy where he was.

Clint did blink across the room to Tony though, taking advantage of the couple of seconds before JARVIS was able to retrain a spotlight on him to lean in close to Tony, ruffle his hair and blow a cold stream of air into his ear.

Tony jerked with surprise, then turned around to glare at the empty space next to Clint.

“You okay?” asked Sam.

“Yep, fine,” said Tony, plastering on a fake smile. “Here, drinks, go, hand them out, go go go, no waiter service today we all have to help out.”

He pushed a tray into Sam’s hands and shooed at him until he walked off with it, then turned back around to where he thought Clint was to hiss, “I told you to be good.”

“Sorry, never been real good at doing what I’m told,” Clint told him cheerfully, but without putting any energy into it so Tony couldn’t hear him. “I can help out with the drinks though.” He carefully focused on a glass of something bubbly, lifting it up off the bar. He was very proud of the fact that it only wobbled a couple of times.

“Put that down!” hissed Tony. “Asshole!”

Clint waved it in front of his face a couple of times while Tony tried to grab for it, sniggering at his frustration as he tried to hide what was happening from the rest of the room by putting himself between them and the glass.

“Put it down or I’ll fit another damn Faraday cage!” snapped Tony, and the reminder of that horrible, soul-sapping prison of metal made Clint lose concentration and drop the glass.

It smashed on the ground and everyone looked over.

“You okay, Tony?” asked Steve.

“Yep, fine, all fine, just butterfingers,” said Tony, managing a fake-looking smile. He bent down to start picking up the broken glass, and Clint crouched beside him.

“ _No cages_ ,” he hissed.

Tony nodded, “I know, I know, sorry, just. I really need tonight to go well.” There was a faint note of desperation in his voice. “Please don’t fuck it up for me. I want these people to like me.”

Clint frowned and looked around the room again, realising that everyone here must be Steve’s friend. The only two friends Clint had seen visit Tony other than Steve, Pepper and Rhodey, weren’t here, and a lot of the assembled guests had the look of off-duty policemen.

He looked back at Tony and the fancy drinks he was serving, all the effort he’d put into decorations and nibbles.

Ah. Yeah. Clint could remember this one. It had been a bit different back then, of course, but the first time Bucky had taken him along to meet his friends in a bar, introducing him as ‘my new roommate’, Clint had been terrified. However stupid it had been, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that if they didn’t like him, Bucky would take a second look and maybe realise he didn’t like what he saw after all.

He blinked away from Tony, back to Bucky’s side. Bucky was frowning at the TV screen, perched on the arm of a sofa. Clint draped himself over Bucky’s shoulders, holding on tightly, and Bucky just bore up under the weight of him.

“Okay, no fucking with him,” Clint said.

“No?” said Bucky, tipping his head back to look up at Clint.

Clint shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Christmas Eve tomorrow,” said Bucky, thoughtfully. “We could go full Christmas Carol.”

“Oh fuck _yes_ ,” said Clint, grinning at him and then leaning in to kiss him. “This, this is why I fucking love you.”


End file.
